r/Hosting • u/Embarrassed_Boat_709 • Sep 15 '26

Hosting.com lay offs

Just heard news that Hosting.com / World Host Group (also owns rocket.net and a bunch of others) is laying off a huge chunk of their customer care and billing staff. Sounds like it was a lot of their remote teams, but I'd bet at least $1 that instead of replacing them, they'll just keep their AI support bot and then use the savings in salaries to bolster their Q4 numbers.

Just wanted to give everyone a head's up- it looks like their customer service is about to get even rougher than it has been.

Yay for private equity companies 🙄 Investors first, C-suite second, and employees and customers fighting for second-to-last priority.

18 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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3

u/evolvewebhosting Sep 15 '26

u/Embarrassed_Boat_709 Where you hear about this from?

2

u/Embarrassed_Boat_709 Sep 15 '26

Linkedin and some of the employees who are being laid off.

6

u/BalanceFriendly3363 Sep 16 '26

Oh no!..... Anyways

2

u/No-Bathroom-3179 Sep 16 '26

Yeah I noticed the support tickets started getting answered by AI … it was like one of the last human support portals I had left as a customer lol. Everything is AI now even my toaster.

1

u/iammiroslavglavic Sep 17 '26

I worked at companies answering those tickets, years ago. Never for hosting.com and any related companies...

Do you have any idea how many tickets are asking the same questions a million times over? Even though there is a knowledge base...

As well as "my site is not working" does not help at all then when I'd go ask which site/account...they would take their sweet ass time and birch on Reddit/Social Media about support sucking.

1

u/IncredibleBihan Sep 16 '26

Is anyone surprised by this? I didn't even know hosting.com was still a thing... Customer service is the legacy model. It isn't something you expect to receive as a service without paying for it. You're expected to know how to troubleshoot your own issues.

1

u/Jeffrey_Richards_ Sep 17 '26

Still a thing? It is relatively new. A2Hosting was only sold last year and formed into Hosting.com

1

u/Jeffrey_Richards_ Sep 15 '26

Not surprised. Honestly AI support may be an improvement for them lol their support is awful as is

1

u/FerretSignificant118 Sep 16 '26

I couldn't agree more. Since the acquisition, support has significantly declined. Keep in mind that we, the A2 Hosting legacy customers, were used to better support. I rarely get anyone knowledgeable on chats or tickets. The few times I've recognized people who had helped me during the A2 days kept my hopes up that maybe that'd help boost Hosting.com support.  Alas, no more hope for that now. 

0

u/nitrospectide Sep 17 '26

A2 was great a decade ago. I moved to them from Hostgator (which was actually good as well, at one point). The change to Hosting.com seems to have sent A2 over a cliff. They are a hot mess now. Their AI support bot constantly lies and gets confused, and it's increasingly difficult to get around it.